I am just interested to see what you, the affiliates, would say is the best performing banner medium.. the static or animated GIF banner. I realise this question generalises, and obviously, it depends upon the campaign, etc, but as a rule of thumb has anybody got any thoughts? We have recently researched this ourselves and reached some surprising conclusions...
Has less to do with type of banner and more to do with what is inside the banner. I do great with graphic banners but I try to hand pick those that are cool to display that may be relevant for my readers. On the question of static vs. animated there is a reason you see animated banners on cnn.com and fox.com. They work
wiseassoffice going point on looking at what works for the high CPM advertisers. like the animated mortgage quote banners etc. For banners your some times looking for impulse sales on high traffic pages. So try to relate to what catches your customers eyes and attention to click over.
Banners should be use wisely and remember that the more graphics and animation there is. The more load time it takes to open a page. If you are running an online business, then simple is always better. Leave the high tech gadgets to other high tech non-business type websites. In general try to use only one or two banners per a page. More than that and it is distracting, plus load time increases, and you know how impatience web-surfer are these days. Here is a great tip: Content is king and will always be for a long time...maybe for as long as the internet is around. Remember to give a lot of info. Good Luck, Paolee
If you go on television sites people expect moving images and banners. If you are on a forum readers view animated banners as just another ad. The most sucess I have had was with banners that are static and blend into the site it is placed on. I think it is views as content rather than an annoying ad.
i think different user groups like different types of banners. Interent users like animated, maybe flash banners, with a lot of effects. So they will work at entertainment sites. Webmasters like simple static banners because they know that this is add and they look only for useful information.
Not really related to topic but Dave, some banners which are animated (when load on a seperate window) shows static in control panel, click codes section. I am not sure if that is related to DirectTrack.
I personally don't like animated banners as a viewer, so on my website I always try to avoid them. But it is a credit score related site so less animation is probably more appropriate. On the other hand, if you have a gaming or kids' website, it should be perfectly OK. Sometimes it can be frustrating to find the right static banners at CJ for personal finance companies, such as credit cards and mortgage loans. They seem to prefer flashing the low interest rates rapidly.
Hi Aras, Thanks for that. Can you let me know of an example of this and i will look into it... Drop me an email. Thanks again.
it completely depens on the context and the content , People like relevence so on a boring lot of text site make tekst ads , and on a flashy site you can nicely make animated banners. so just make a few test and monitor wich works best and get clicked the most !!
I like animated banners in they are not too much "flashy". No matter if baner is static or animated I don't like bright colors, they are too much annoying.
The problem with animated banners is that alot of advertisers go a little to far and make them blink non stop, which will only annoy a sites visitors. As a site owner that uses banners on one of my sites, I prefer banners that are not animated.
do split testing - because specific sites use animated banners because it attracts while others dont because its annoying it really depends on the niche, for example games, audio, interaction lots of affilaite use animated banners while directories and reading materials use static